Posts
A Reflection by
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
For a number of years before I came to find Christ truly
in my life, my senses were finally attuned to a deep existential questioning of
being and purpose, cause and effect, meaning and mission. During my years of formation into the fine arts
and onward into ministry after my conversion; I would look at writers such as
C.S. Lewis and Thomas Moore. Before
reading this book, I was very spiritually intrigued with the powerful and
creative insights of Brother Thomas Moore who has written several books around
the character, nature and challenges of the soul and its spiritual development. Other authors I have found a similar
connection to are Dietrich Bonhoeffer and R.C. Sproul.
The soul, from descriptions and contemplation in the Bible,
talk about the heart as holding the breath of life and as the place to turn to
God through—transformation. Brother Teasdale,
unlike any person of faith I have read from before, most profoundly speaks of a
mystical pursuit of a transformative and transcending spiritual life. These insights have come through a practice
and awareness of God in every kind of sense: physical and external, prayerful
and internally realized. He talks about his
monastic community experiences and disciplines, but more importantly, he deeply
reflects on taking this New Nature attitude into the outside world. He never uses the words, New Nature, but this
is what I felt he was most directly speaking about or towards.
Everything he describes, revealed to me a Divine truth in
living fully into a real authentic faith, that is a faith that lives and grows
beyond the self in a beautiful and most natural response to Grace. If I were to dive into writing my spiritual
insights around walking in faith; I would be reflecting something similar, but
more existentially attuned to how the New Nature allows us to live truly,
beyond the self and in communion with God.
It is the ultimate teleos (true spiritual growth), we are covenantally
called to as children of Grace and Promise.
He calls the world a place of “exile,” this is true in
some senses in this misnamed age of “authenticity…” We are supposedly “free to be,” or our
autonomy is acknowledged by the secular world, but it couldn’t be further from
the truth existentially in our lives’ faith journeys. Just this one quote from the early part of
his book spoke volumes: “The world and all of life, offer us the opportunity
for transformation by giving us occasions to transcend ourselves. The opportunity is everywhere. It is a constant call to surrender to God, to
Christ or the Divine present in everyone and in every situation. There is only one reality, in which we arise
and transcend. Nothing stands outside
this one cosmic system of life in which we all participate. I believe the Spirit is calling us to realize
this truth, to allow ourselves to be transformed by it, and so to transform the
world.”
We are both empirical and spiritual prisoners to the ego
or Old Nature; but we are called to break from the bondage of this innate willfulness
that stifles our awareness of the divine sovereignty and His actions in and
throughout our lives. We need to remove or come out from underneath the “veneers”
of whom we have, or society has painted us to be. The authentic advancement of humanity
according to our Christian faith needs to be made through fine tuning our whole
selves through prayer, meditation, listening, “being” with God. This goes way beyond the structure and
institution of the church. This is an
operative activity taking place in what I have come to understand on my own
journey, as the church within our very hearts.
The soul of the person is the created spark of life given to us by God
and for God’s work to guide us through this temporal, earthly life.
The soul or the spiritual heart, internal church is where
the Holy Spirit guides us to incorporate a spiritual process of reflection,
confession, repentance and renewal.
Those four words were actually from a fantastic insight from a mentor I
had early on in my journey to serve.
They say so much, however, and connect so concretely to developing a
willingness, a great motivation to become a spiritually whole person through
Christ who DID give us the capacity to move mountains if we wanted to!
Brother Teasdale develops his insights on spiritual
formation activities to further talk about time, wisdom, relationships and
dealing with the challenges and meaning of suffering as well as developing multiple
levels of awareness to in essence, reap the New Nature and its beatific fruit. This fruit is beginning to live beyond the
self and in communion with God through agape love. Brother Teasdale only seems to talk about
agape love for the most part, but I think to truly live into the holistic
lifestyle of Grace, one must faithfully develop all layers of love alongside
agape love being—philos love (compassion, brotherly love), sergos love (family,
parental, motherly love). Another
wonderful quote from his book: “Life continually presents us with a choice—either
seek for ourselves or to think of others, to be concerned with others who
suffer… To learn from suffering, we have to be open to it, to allow it to shape
our other-centeredness.”
The book continues into looking at societal situations
such as homelessness and harboring compassion and humility. He even has a beautiful segment of thought
about his personal spiritual growth from suffering and recovering from
cancer. He calls this “tough grace.” I
thought it was a profound observation of his to feel that it is a gift from God
to develop the soul. Yes, we need to
experience those valleys to understand those mountain tops! We need to let our hearts truly be good soil
for His living and transformative Word to teach us.
Other aspects of his book I found personally challenging
to completely agree with. What these
areas of discussion were focused on included universalism and ecclesial renewal
and reform. Although, ecumenism and
interfaith dialogue and spiritual formation are very important; balance and
introspect need to keep things in the proper perspective. For example, in the past I looked at Zen Buddhism
and what it has to offer in connection to tenets of faith I hold to. Where Zen Buddhism doesn’t connect with
Christianity is that it does not have a completion of life to death to new life
as what we see in the radical Gospel of Christ and the teachings of His Cross
and resurrection. Years ago, I read a
book called: ‘If you meet a Buddha on the Road, Kill him.’ It was an existential, philosophical
perspective pointing to the same issue.
If we cannot see the complete picture of ourselves as willful and
willing beings, we are, in essence, avoiding completing the process to
spiritual wholeness, enlightenment.
In regards to discussion around ecclesial renewal and
reform, the image of the church was still more or less institutional for him,
and he didn’t go there with what I see needs to be ecclesial renewal and reform,
being returning to teaching faith-based discipleship, comprehensive spiritual
formation not doctrinally bound, except to Biblical truth. The greatest gifts I have received from my
faith journey into ministry has been through church planting. It was literally like living into the Book of
Acts, by gathering together and scattering afterwards, with what we have come
to learn together. But just as we are
coming to grow in developing and understanding about faith as culture—things,
patterns etc. are being intertwined and new views are coming forward. What needs to be preserved, is prospective
and Biblical faithfulness to spiritual formation as given to us through Christ.
In conclusion, this was a wonderful book to read and if I
have the chance to read it again, I will.
It has profound insights for the pastoral office to consider in
developing an authentic heart for ministry and ministering to others through a
restorative justice and compassion that truly lives into the Beatitudes of Christ—the
New Nature.
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
No comments:
Post a Comment